Jim Thorpe area laments death of guardsman

Bob LayloOf The Morning Call

A day after learning that one of its native sons had died while at war in Iraq, the tight-knit Jim Thorpe area community on Friday began to mourn and deal with its grief.

Spc. Jeremy Maresh, who served in the National Guard with a unit based in Lehighton, died Tuesday of an apparent suicide while in Baghdad where he did military police work, a National Guard spokesman said. The Army is investigating.

Maresh, of Penn Forest Township, was a 2001 graduate of Jim Thorpe Area High School, where he was part of the weight-lifting club, a member of the wrestling team and a football player. He was the father of a 16-month-old son, Shane. The toddler lives with his mother in Penn Forest.

''Our teachers were saddened the war has been brought home to Jim Thorpe,'' Jeffrey Nietz, guidance counselor at the high school, said at a news conference Friday. Nietz said a few students sought counseling after learning of the death. He said several teachers who knew Maresh well also needed to express their grief.

Nietz remembered Maresh as a big man who ''bopped around the halls'' and was extremely proud of his weight-lifting accomplishments.

''He wanted to be a military policeman,'' Nietz said.

Maresh was raised by his grandparents, William and Helen Fisher in a Penn Forest Township development. The Fishers chose not address the media Friday.

''They're torn apart,'' said the Rev. John Hassler, pastor of Christ Lutheran Church in Penn Forest, who has been spending time with the Fishers.

Maresh was a member of the church, and Hassler said he knew him about 10 years.

''He was one of the most respectful young men I met,'' Hassler said.

He said the 350-member congregation has been supportive of the family.

Hassler and Charles McHugh, director of the Carbon County Office of Veterans Affairs, said they still haven't received an official report as to how Maresh died.

Until he hears otherwise, McHugh said, he considers Maresh to be a ''casualty of war.''

McHugh said Maresh's body, accompanied by a casualty assistance officer, was expected to be at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware on Friday and be returned to Jim Thorpe on Sunday. The Edward F. Melber Funeral Home in Jim Thorpe will be in charge of the arrangements, McHugh said.

Hassler said details of the services will be announced next week.

Since Christ Lutheran Church was destroyed by fire in 2006, Hassler said he's trying to find a location that will handle the large crowd expected for the services.

No matter the circumstances of the death, McHugh said Maresh will get a full military funeral with honors.

McHugh, who got teary-eyed as he talked, offered condolences to Maresh's family on behalf of veterans in the county and in the state.

Then he remembered when Maresh and other members of the National Guard Battery A, 1st Battalion, 213th Air Defense Artillery, prepared for deployment in 2006. He said everyone was positive, thinking all 33 members of the unit would return home alive.

McHugh, a Jim Thorpe Area School Board member, said it's been particularly hard because Maresh is the second graduate of the high school to die in Iraq.

Army Sgt. Andrew J. Baddick, 26, was killed in September 2003. He died in a canal near Abu Ghraib prison, trying to find the body of a soldier whose Humvee had crashed in the water.